Hala ka ukulele
by goldenlesbiangeekratio
Summary: High School AU. Classic girl meets girl. Dork-y Delphine crushes on ukulele player Cosima. [Random one-shots and drabbles in this universe.]
1. We get on

C-. She sighed heavily. How would she explain a C- to her parents? How was she supposed to do that, anyway? And- How did_ that_ even happened? She'd always gotten, as her classmates said, _killer grades_. Nothing below A- in her report card, thank you. And now that. Her mom- She would not understand what had happened there. C-. In Biology. Her favourite class.

Well, Delphine knew there was a reason for that. And a very, very good one, actually.

Cosima. Her lab partner.

Who was, right then, playing some pop punk song in her ukulele, as her sister, Sarah, laughed by her side, both of them singing the lyrics between giggles in a corner of the courtyard.

Cosima, who was a hand-talker, who liked to touch people's limbs as she talked to them, her hands motioning on air or gripping forearms as her eyes brightened in excitement. Cosima, who skateboarded and kept falling everywhere, smiling brightly nonetheless. Cosima, getting baked behind the gym walls. Cosima, Felix's sister, a brunette, olive skinned girl who wore thick black glasses and, according to him, was dreadlocked only since the beginning of the year (and, before that, had really bushy, curly dark hair).

"She looked just like that frigging Hermione girl, if you know what I mean", he'd said, and Delphine'd smiled as she pictured what the smaller girl would've looked like with bushy hair.

(Felix happened to be her only friend at this new school- Her only friend in the country, in all honesty. And he was full of foster siblings who looked all very much alike; Sarah and Helena were twins, but it was like all of Felix's siblings were sixtuplets- The twins, Alison, Rachel, Tony and Cosima were all very similar. And yet, Cosima was the most different, unique person she'd seen in her whole life. Felix once had told her Sarah felt the same way about her sister. "Cosima is unlike anyone I've ever met", she'd said to him the year before Delphine left France.)

Cosima, who was unlike anyone _Delphine_'d ever met. Delphine'd planned on being her friend. She was Felix's sister, after all, and she was taking advanced biology classes as well- But something went wrong along the way, and she hated that blood rushed to her cheeks every time Cosima said "hi", smiling toothly as she tilted her head to the side. Delphine couldn't explain what was that she was feeling, until someday - BAM! - Cosima'd touched her elbow. Her legs had turned into jello then, and she'd understood it all.

"You have a crush on my sister? On my geek-y, stoner sister?", Felix'd mocked her back when she first told him, right after the fifth biology class she'd shared with Cosima. He'd chuckled harder as her face'd turned red.

"I guess so, oui", she'd whispered back. "But I need you to keep this as a secret."

"Why? She'd do you in a heartbeat, Delphine, don't be stupid. Go for it. Grow some balls."

But she couldn't. She couldn't grow some balls, she couldn't be brave enough to tell her everything. And she couldn't really concentrate during biology classes anymore, because Cosima's knee kept touching hers by accident, Cosima's fingers kept brushing hers as they reached for the microscope at the same time, Cosima's face kept turning to face her, all teeth and bright eyes every single time. In the end of the day she'd gotten a C- because she simply couldn't bring herself to proper study; Cosima was all she could think about when she thought about biology. (Being really honest, Cosima was all she could think about, period.)

Cosima was lovely.

She was all smiles and grace and intelligence. All smoothness and wonder- And she loved things in a way very much_ hers._ She loved _everything_- Her sisters (especially Sarah, who seemed to love her back just as much), her brothers, her best friend, Scott Smith, her ukulele, the universe, nature, science. She loved both order and mess.

She_ was_ both wonder and mess. And she was amazed by the world.

Delphine was amazed_ by her._ She loved watching Cosima exist, she loved checking every move of hers, seeing her lungs expand as she put oxygen into them. Delphine loved it all. And she knew it was sort of creepy, watching her like that, as if she was monitoring Cosima's steps. But she couldn't care less about being creepy. Because-

Because Delphine loved her. She couldn't help it.

Her heart sank as she watched the other girl rest her head on Sarah's lap, her fingers still picking the ukulele strings as Helena approached them and asked if she could sing some weird song which lyrics were apparently about wanting a candy girl or something like that. The girl in dreads smiled at the way Sarah'd snorted.

Delphine's heart was racing already. Jumping against her ribcage. She wasn't used to any of these feelings back in France. It was all very new and overwhelming. Yes. Overwhelming. There was no other word. It amazed her, in a way, but - mainly - it was _terrifying._

She forced herself to look away and started walking in the opposite direction, her eyes finding Felix not so far from there.

"Hey."

"So?"

"So what?"

"Biology- Weren't you supposed to know your grades today?"

"Oh. That. I, um, wasn't very well."

"Bollocks."

"Non, Felix- I mean it. I've been very... Distracted."

"Oh? _Oh._ Yeah. I get it. We're gonna work on that, Frenchie. My sister, even being short-sighted, can't really be that blind."


	2. Philosophize With It! Chemicalize In It!

Psychology classes weren't something she usually looked forward to. She never really enjoyed studying the human brain under that light, never enjoyed talking about stuff like subjectiveness, cognition, counciousness. _God forbid this teacher starts talking about Freudian slips and shit every time I make a mistake _(she knew she'd make a bunch of them), she'd thought back then, right before the first class. Delphine thought everything about Oedipus complex was rather outrageous. _We are our bodies and that's it. We are our brains and the enzymes and the neurons_.

But Cosima thought otherwise.

They shared that class, too. But there they were not partners— Some of Cosima's siblings attended Psychology as well and she sat with Tony (Helena and Sarah right behind them) since the beginning of the year. Felix and Alison attended something else at the same time so Delphine's partner was a (quite nice) girl called June Darvis with whom she spent some time with once or twice, but wasn't really her friend. Just an acquaintance.

Anyway, back to Cosima.

Cosima thought otherwise because she was into evolutionary development and it included caring about epigenetics and evolutionary Psychology. She loved discussing the nature versus nurture topic and most of the Psychology classes were occupied by her voice, pulling out words in an excited tone, getting into plausible arguments with the teacher, Rilke Donovan (a 30 year-old man who was the type of teacher every straight girl had a crush on, mainly because he called students by their first names instead of going for the formalities other teachers went for, and also because Donovan was sort of handsome), as her hands wandered in air.

Delphine didn't really care about anything she was saying but loved that Cosima participated that much. She'd much rather watch the dreadlocked girl have the same discussion at Biology class; it'd be even better if they - the teacher and her - just talked about Neuroscience instead. But Cosima enjoyed Cognitivsm and Social Psychology and Behaviorism. Delphine could bear Skinner but she really did loathe Deleuze and Guattari. _Cosima didn't mind them._ How could she-?

"Hey, hey, guys— Tony, would you please stop braiding Helena's and Cosima's hair together?", Donovan said as he walked into the room. Delphine sighed in amusement as she heard Cosima's groan from behind _"FUCK, TONE! Now THAT's why you were playing with my locks?!_". Tony was sort of a prick, yes. But the nice kind of prick.

"Cosima— Language, yeah?"

"Dude. You were braiding my locks to our sister's hair. You must eat shit if you think you're allowed to, like, call me out for saying fuck—", Cosima snorted. Delphine dared turning her head a bit and catched the smaller girl making a funny face at her brother. She chewed her lip to suppress a smile as her cheeks turned red. It is getting ridiculous, she thought, you can't even face her.

"Hey, hey! Stop it, will you? It's class time, you two. You don't really want me to be the mean teacher here, do you? I kind of appreciate being the nice guy 'round", Donovan said. He was nice indeed. And, according to what people said in the hallways, he was also banging Sarah. "Um, anyways— I'd like you guys to write a scientific article about falling in love accordingly to one of the following theories: Psychoanalysis, Behaviorism and Gestaltism. If you are Cosima or Cosima's partner, I guess you can write about it under the light of Evolutionary Psychology because she won't write it under any other light. You can divide yourselves by alphabetic order; as I've got four Niehauses in this class, that means you're going to go for your first names in the search for your new partner."

"Cool. I got Sarah anyways", shrugged Tony, high fiving his sister with a sly smirk.

"Oh no. I got Helena", June frowned, half because she really enjoyed working with Delphine, half because she was a bit afraid of Sarah's twin.

1. Alice F. Dumitrof  
2. Arnold Behrens  
3. Brittany J. Meyer  
4. Brooke R. Kilvert  
5. Caroline Bent  
6. Cor Bridewell  
7. Cosima Niehaus  
8. Delphine Cormier  
9. Faber W. Beck  
10. Harry Irving N. Adams  
11. June Darvis  
12. Helena M. Niehaus  
13. Oliver F. Prescott  
14. Maia Ferguson  
15. Robert M. Freeman  
16. Robert Wolff  
17. Sarah M. Niehaus  
18. Tony S. Niehaus

"Hey Delphine— It looks like we're working together again. Awesome, uh?"

Toothy grin. Tilted head. Half a head smaller than Delphine herself, Cosima Niehaus stood in front of her, all smiles and wonder, waiting for her to start planning what they'd do.

Delphine could not decide if fate was being generous or very, very mean to her.


End file.
